Veteran Meyer, TO2015 champ Kiejko named to Canada’s Rio 2016 shooting team
Two shooters were named to the Canadian squad for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Thursday, bringing the official number of athletes on Team Canada to 29 thus far.
Cynthia Meyer and Lynda Kiejko will represent Canada at the Olympic Shooting Centre, the range located in the Deodoro zone of Rio de Janeiro. Their inclusion comes after 27 swimmers were named to the Canadian team last month, firing off a series of team announcements to come this spring and summer.
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Cynthia Meyer looks on at the Olympic Games in Athens on August 18, 2004.
Meyer is a three-time Olympian who will compete in trap. Her best Olympic result in this event was 10th place at Sydney 2000, where she was fifth in the double trap, which isn’t part of the women’s competition calendar in Rio.
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Kiejko – though set for her first Olympics – is no stranger to the history of the Games, with a three-time Olympian father, Bill Hare, and London 2012 competitor, sister Dorothy Ludwig, in the family. Kiejko is set to take on the world in the 10-metre air pistol and the 25m pistol competitions, both events she won at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games last summer in Innisfil, Ontario.
Lynda Kiejko with her 10m air pistol shooting gold medal at the Pan American Games on July 12, 2015.
In this highly competitive global sport, the Shooting Federation of Canada has made the Olympic podium on nine occasions. Linda Thom won its last and most historic Olympic medal, a gold at Los Angeles 1984 in the 25m sporting pistol, after returning from retirement upon learning that women’s shooting was to be included at the Olympic Games. Thom became the first woman ever to win an Olympic shooting event.
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George Beattie is the most decorated Canadian Olympic shooter, winning three medals: two prior to World War I at London 1908 and his last one at Paris 1924.
Meyer’s trap event takes place on Day 2 of competition on August 7. The same day Kiejko sees 10m air pistol action, before the 25m event ranging from August 9 to 10.
The Deodoro zone at Rio 2016:
